Monday, March 28, 2022

X-Men Monday #150 – The X-Office Kicks Off the Destiny of X Era

AiPT!: Welcome, X-Fans, to another uncanny edition of X-Men Monday at AIPT — which also happens to be our 150th edition! Jordan D. White’s gathered a few of the X-Writers to give the Destiny of X era a proper kickoff.

AIPT: X-Writers, what has you most eXcited about your new Destiny of X series/runs? To quote the always enthusiastic X-Fan PolarIceFire’s question, “SELL IT to us, let’s get even more buzz goin’!!”

Tini: This sort of addresses the above question, too, but the Dawn and the Reign were about building, maintaining, this sort of massive amount of story energy I was funneling into building a realm and keeping it going. Now, we’ve built this massive Otherworld machine — we get to jump in and play with a structure that’s CLASSIC X-Men, and something we don’t see a ton of back on Earth — mutants on the run.

Knights of X has a lot of highs and lows — we’re fighting back against tyrannical fascism that’s crept into our perceived fantasy. But also, it’s not so dire, we have heroes fighting back against it.

Also, there is kiss~ing.

29 comments:

X-Man said...

Better costume, but I still prefer Dissasembled.

The kissing comment seems kinda childish to me lol.

Hoping for the best, preparing for the worst lol.

Unknown said...

I'm certainly waiting for the crap show

FSaker said...

"Better costume, but I still prefer Dissasembled"

Agreed; that uniform was SO GOOD! It's a shame that she barely wore it. Oh well, I'm okay with this KoX outfit, anyway (I think it looks better when she's with the helmet on).

As for the description of the story... "But also, it’s not so dire" - isn't one of the heroes dying FOR REAL in issue #3 (since mutantkind is still unable to properly resurrect anyone who dies in Otherworld)? That's pretty dire to me.

And it's awful, because I actually care about most of the cast (Betsy, Gambit, Rachel, Meggan...) and don't want to see any of them dying. Also, hopefully Howard has enough good sense to know she should NOT kill or seriously injure Shogo.

Kuno said...

Kissing. She's pairing Rachel with Betsy. Don't like that, they are close friends.
Kitty & Magik, Kitty & Rachel would made sense, not this.

Rahsaan said...

I really hope she is talking about Julio and Gaveedra; not Elizabeth and Rachel.

X-Man said...

I agree @Kuno & @Rahsaan. Not looking forward to that probable pairing at all lol.

Rahsaan said...

@X-Man, based on Leah and Vita’s replies as well the teasers for various covers we have seen pairing them off (including this last one where they are shown together on what look like tarot cards Remy is throwing out), I think this is what Tini is gonna do and what she has been “building” toward since Excalibur. Or maybe all this excitement, the three of them are so giddy about is just to throw the audience off and actually really surprise us. So far, nothing in Tini’s writing has been pleasantly surprising or exciting. It’s actually been anticlimactic consistently. The reason I used quotation marks around building is that this author’s writing in Excalibur, X-Corp, and Secret X-Men has all felt very unsatisfying to me. If this tension she seems to be trying to convey between Rachel and Elizabeth feels forced to me and out of left field. If it were a Rachel and Kitty story that would be one thing and feel organic, but this feels just as forced as Rachel and Kurt were during Claremont’s run when he had Rachel longing unrequitedly for Kurt during the ReLoad era and then later when Guggenheim made them into a zero chemistry couple in the ResurrXion era.

I feel like Rachel is always a character they throw stuff on to see if it sticks. I definitely think she would do well in a queer-centric story based on how Claremont established her previously but I do not feel that Betsy is the right pairing. Betsy has never felt queer to me. Even that same sex relationship with Cluster felt off.

randybear said...

Whats funny is Leah made Betsys bisexuality Canon in an interview lol Yes she was with Cluster but always viewed that as a pansexual moment

Kiki M. Ishola said...

By thimbles and threads better than the kettle getup. If and only if the kettle was mammy apron free and capeless it had my vote. I love the new with a shorter vest and a papillon cut.

Kiki M. Ishola said...

Same

Kiki M. Ishola said...

Helmets nixed Betsy's hair can't be flattened only hair spray and expensive brushes dare touch them. A perm is always welcome.

Kiki M. Ishola said...

Incest incoming. Choo choo get on the Tini train of smooching and meh writing. Rachel and Betsy become scissor sisters.

X-Man said...

Agreed @Rahsaan.

I also echo the other sentiments about Betsy never seeming bisexual before.

It's funny how they downplayed everything else Betsy knows like martial arts, psychic knife, but held on to the supposed bisexuality which was kinda arguable as it was a part of a man she was into.

Not looking forward to Betsy & Rachel at all. Lol.

Rahsaan said...

The correlation between bad Betsy writing is not lost on me. The Cluster affair was written by Sam Humphreys who wrote Betsy atrociously during his run with her acting so out of character, becoming a criminal thief with the Fantomexes and having a potty mouth and cursing like every other panel. I hated his take on the character.

Jaime Braz said...

Sigh when the flower is more purple than Betsy's hair.

The newest uniform has it's advantages of protection and fitting into the knight realm.

The short interview isn't a sneak peek of what's to come although it has me doubt anything has changed from the previous lackluster run.

Jaime Braz said...

@Rahsaan are they using the Gaveedra identity for Shatterstar? I thought Benjamin Russel is his full name after the half Mojo warrior joined the human half due to the Siege Perilous effects activate on pregnant Dazzler.

randybear said...

The Rachel Betsy pairing just feels so forced on Tini's part. We know she didn't pitch any book with Betsy so being mandated to write a character that wasn't near youre first choice will lead to them doing fanfic crap with them. Gillen knocked Immortal XMen out of the park and all Tini Howard did was mention kissing 🙄

Rahsaan said...

@Jaime, Julio has called him as “Gav” in the Krakoa era from what I recall. Also, please explain the Siege Perilous connection to his gestation in the womb. That whole story with he and Ben Russell was so convoluted and I don’t recall it all. The Siege Perilous was part of it?

Rahsaan said...

@randy, if you had to compare this current interpretation of Elizabeth compared to the one in Humphrey’s X-Force, which would you say feels most forced into situations? For me Humphrey’s is probably still the worst.

randybear said...

His UXF was horrid! There was no substance at all in that series and glad it was mostly all ignored. And yes his Betsy was horrid, seriously one of the worst writers to get a hold of her glad the run was at least pretty short.

FSaker said...

In Humphries's defense, his run did show us Betsy finally giving Spiral a beatdown. And it allowed Bishop to start his path towards redemption (same for Spiral, but other writers forgot it and it seems she's back to her usual life as Mojo's partner in crime), which is nice because Bishop had been ruined in the Messiah saga before that.

...I guess those were the only thing I could use to defend it. I could say it was nice that he brought Cassandra Nova back, but Cassandra wasn't written as she should be. Cable's simultaneous X-Force book was much more interesting, despite not being a good book either. Fortunately Spurrier merged both teams into a single X-Force and delivered an amazing (and, in my opinion, VERY underappreciated) run.

FSaker said...

As for Howard only using Betsy because she was mandated to do it, I guess this only applied before Excalibur started. Considering the final arcs in Excalibur and KoX's background, I seriously doubt that she doesn't want to write Betsy. Her ideas for Betsy may not be good ones, but she does seem invested in the character.

I'm okay if Betsy and Rachel become a couple (I like Rachel, even though her backstory is a complete mess - even more than Betsy's), BUT it has to be properly developed. And considering how Excalibur would often jump from one point to the other with no explanation of how the story progressed between those points, I'm afraid Howard may fail to show this development, which can make this idea look cheap and used just to shock readers (even if that's not her intention).

Rahsaan said...

@FSaker, that is my fear. Specifically that any prospective pairing of these two will not be written well. I could come around to the idea of Betsy being queer if handled by a good writer. There has always been pretty obvious queer hinting with Rachel since her inception in the 80s. With Elizabeth though, this change came out of left field with Humphreys who wrote her personality so off across all of its facets that I could not enjoy any of his run. And now with Howard who wrote her so off for so long that I barely acted when the character finally showed some hint of her true self in the last arc. Also, both Humphreys and Howard write uncompelling dialogue to me and write boring pacing in their stories, so I am struggling to see how this romance will be written to feel organic as nothing about Humphreys’ X-Force and Howard’s Excalibur felt organic or interesting to me.

And I really pray that Kylun is not being brought back from obscurity to be written as wastefully as she wrote Anna and Jubilation in that last run.

Jaime Braz said...

@Rahsaan Benjamin was born by Dazzler and was whisked away by himself and Rictor. I believe Dazzler was stranded in the Mojoworld lab after the Siege Perilous effect and wished to find Longshot and get her music career back. Benjamin was grown to an adult by the same magic and became comatose with amnesia as seen in X-Force.

How Benjamin's uemeur he calls soul was split into two the him and Gaveedra is pending for a storyline. The magic incident has changed both Longshot's and his son's origins.

The time travel of Shatterstar's Gaveedra half self made the predestination paradox we read from Peter David.

Jaime Braz said...

@randybear, @Rahsaan Rachel has a comic history from Chris Claremont implying she was meant to be with Kitty Pryde.

The same writer has written Betsy and Rachel as sisters creating their friendship after Betsy's resurrection and the Shi'ar attack on the Grey family and their subsequent deaths. Betsy gave a promise to Kitty if memory serves right to stay by Rachel's side to support her.

These are the reasons the upcoming galmance is wrong. I was expecting Tini Howard to pick up her friend's Leah Williams romantic storyline of Betsy and Blob from Age of X-Man to be honest.

A beautiful super model dating an obese mutant is more interesting to me and makes for a body positivity story with a social message.

Rahsaan said...

Thanks, @Jaime. I think by the time Dax made it back to mojoworld to become empregnated, she’d already gotten her memory back. Recall there was a big gap when we saw her amnesiac in Los Angeles with Guido at Lila’s house while Lila was in outer space and when that unhinged fan stalked Dazz and she healed him with her light. We then didn’t see her again until years later (in our time; not comic book time) when the Blue Team goes to Mojoworld to help take down Mojo II. At that point both Longshot and Dazzler both have their memories fully intact and we learn that she is pregnant. Then we don’t see her again for several more years our time when Jean recruits her for that temporary team to help take down Magneto on Genosha and we learn that she “lost” her fetus.

Rahsaan said...

So not sure that Siege Perilous has anything to do with her and Shatterstar at the times he was conceived and born.

Jaime Braz said...

@Rahsaan Alison shared her miscarriage with Jean therefore it has to be the birth of Shatterstar shown to be sent to the future by his mature self.

The Benjamin Russel patient who was identical to Gaveedra might be a fetus Alison didn't know she carried before entering the Siege Perilous. It's the only way to explain the two Shatterstars since the Otherworld is involved with the multiverse. Benjamin Russel should be an alternate Shatterstar by magic because he existed before Shatterstar came to Earth to join the X-Force.

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